After my studies at the pedagogical university, I actually wanted to start teaching as a primary school teacher at a primary school here in the region. But due to the lack of students, no new teachers were hired at the time, which is why I decided to do a voluntary social year first. After extensive research, I found what I was looking for in a neighboring town 20 kilometers away. There was still a vacancy in geriatric care where they were looking for a support worker. Since the position there could be filled immediately, I did not hesitate and said yes to the management of the home.

After a few days, the employment contract, which was limited to one year, was sent to me. With the exception of all labor law information and the nursing home's code of conduct, there were actually no noteworthy points in the contract. I was supposed to bring my vaccination card with me on the first day, but they probably just wanted to see whether it was up to date and whether I was immune to all contagious diseases. And of course, the remuneration should have been a bit higher, but as an untrained worker, you can't expect much from voluntary social year. So I didn't think about it any further and signed the employment contract and sent it back to the care management.

Almost two months passed and then it was September 1st. The day my first day at work was. Since it was still warm in late summer that day, I put on a short dark blue shirt with a V-neck and my favorite jeans that day. Although I had put on a pair of sandals, I also packed a pair of socks in my small handbag because I knew that you had to wear work sandals there, which should be made available to you. At least that was what the contract said. And barefoot it would be very strange.

So I took the train to the nursing home. The journey took about 15 minutes and then another 10 minutes on foot from the train station. So every morning I had a nice walk included, although I was sure that in my new job I will be on my feet a lot anyway.

When I arrived at the nursing home, I first registered at reception.

"Good Morning! My name is Miriam Wegner and today I have my first day of work as part of the voluntary social year with you. "

"Good Morning! Nice to see you here, Ms. Wegner! I will let the care management know that you have arrived with us.“, said the lady at the reception in a friendly manner and picked up the phone straight away.

She phoned another person and reported my arrival to them.

“Okay Ms. Wegner. You can go up the stairs at the front, then walk down the left corridor all the way to the back and then report to the care management. Ms. Bauer will be waiting for you there. "

“All right, I'll do that. Thank you very much!", I said to the lady at the registration desk and gave her a friendly smile when I said goodbye.

"Never mind! Then I wish you a nice first day at work and a good start with us."

"Thank you!" I said again and went towards the stairs, which I then padded up.

At the top I turned left into the long corridor and then ran straight down it. The corridor was quite long and it looked like this was the administrative wing of the building, as all the offices of the nursing home were located here. Arrived at the end of the corridor, there was also a sign saying “Care management - Ms. Dahnbach”. I knocked twice briefly and then I could already hear "Come in". I opened the door and went into Ms. Dahnbach's office.

"Good morning!", I said kindly to the lady who was sitting at a large desk in the office.

"Good Morning! You have to be Ms. Wegner, right?”, said the care manager, getting up from her chair and walking towards me.

"Exactly! Today I am starting my voluntary social year with you in the care department."

"Very good! I'm Ms. Dahnbach, I'm delighted to meet you.", the lady said to me and shook hands with me, with a handshake that was very strong for a woman.

“Have a seat. We will first go through the personal details briefly before I will take you to your responsible department head, who will then go through all further briefings with you."

First of all, Ms. Dahnbach went through all the personnel-related documents with me. After about ten minutes, we had already processed all points. At least almost...

“I just see that we are still missing the medical certificate from you. We absolutely need this from you before starting work. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to employ you for us without the certificate. We have strict regulations on this in the care sector. Unfortunately, we had forgotten to inform you of this beforehand.”, Ms. Dahnbach explained to me.

"Oh, and what does that mean now?", I asked, a little startled.

“We have a doctor in the neighborhood who is also responsible for our care as a company and on-call doctor. I arranged an appointment for you there this morning. If it were all right with you, I would ask you to go over there at 9:30 am and have your health confirmed briefly."

"Ah okay. Yes, let's do it that way.”, I agreed with Ms. Dahnbach.

“Our new trainee, who is also having his first day with us today, will also be there. I sent him to our doctor half an hour ago. You would then have to come directly after him."

“Where can I find the practice? Do you have an exact address for me?"

"Of course. This is really only not far from here. That’s maybe a three minute walk. You really just have to walk around the corner here. The practice of our Ms. Klein is at Forststraße 23. A white, relatively new building on the left side of the street. There is also a practice sign in front of the door, so it is almost impossible to miss."

"Okay, then I'll find that. Should I be on my way then? In 15 minutes it will be half past nine."

“Yes, that would be fine if you started right away. When you have the certificate, just contact me again briefly when you get back. Then I can create and complete your personnel file with us and then you can go to our first briefing.”, said the care manager happily.

“All right, then I'll go to the practice. Dr. It was called small, right?”, I wanted to make sure again.

“Exactly, Dr. Klein, Forststraße 23."

I said goodbye to Ms. Dahnbach and made my way to the mentioned doctor. On the short walk, I actually thought less about what the doctor could do right away. I suspected a short health check and an examination of the vaccination record to ensure that it was up to date. In the meantime, I was on the lookout for the trainee who should have an appointment with the doctor before me. But no young man met me on the short way. Perhaps his appointment still seemed to have stopped? After three minutes I saw the doctor's house or practice. In front of the entrance door there was a sign that showed that I was at the right address “Dr. med. Anne Klein - General Practitioner”. So she seemed like a normal family doctor. So nothing special. I rang the doorbell, after which I heard the humming door opener shortly afterwards. I joined the practice and was then directly involved in the registration process.

"Hello, my name is Miriam Wegner and I should pick up a certificate from you so that I can start my voluntary social year at the nursing home in the neighborhood.“

“Hello Ms. Wegner! Yes, you have already been registered. I would like to briefly ask you to take a seat in the waiting room. Unfortunately, this morning the doctor had an emergency at short notice and had to leave the house. But she will very likely be back in a few minutes.“

"All right, no problem.", I said to the lady at the registration desk and headed towards the waiting room.

When I entered the waiting room, a young man was already sitting there who was absorbed in a sports magazine.

-That could be the trainee Ms. Dahnbach had talked about. The poor guy, if he's still sitting in the waiting room, he must have been waiting here for a while.-

I sat down on a chair that was on the opposite side of the young man. Since I wasn't really interested in sports magazines or one of those gossip magazines at the time, I took my smartphone out of my handbag and used it to distract myself a bit. But again and again my gaze directed me to the other side of the room.

-How old can he be? He still looks very young. Maybe 18 or 19? He should definitely be younger than me with my 23 years. He looks a bit taller than me and makes a sporty impression. His blonde brown hair matches his cute face. In short, I find him very interesting at first glance.-

I heard people talking in the entrance area of ​​the practice. Seems like the doctor just arrived. But since the young man across from me had an appointment before me, it should be a few minutes before my turn would come. So I continued to immerse myself in my cell phone and didn't worry about it. And I wasn't really nervous either, because at the moment I was assuming that the appointment would go even faster anyway, because the doctor was already a few minutes behind schedule. Surely I was only waiting for a short conversation about previous illnesses, allergies, etc. Maybe a short time measuring my blood pressure and something like that. Nothing exciting.

A few moments passed until the lady from the registration suddenly entered the waiting room.

"Well, the doctor has arrived in the meantime and so that we don't lose any more time, you two can follow me straight away."

-I'm sorry, what? Did I just misheard or did she say the two of us?-

The young gentleman across from me also looked at me a bit confused, but immediately got up and followed the nurse outside to check in. I didn't want to be idle, so I quickly packed my smartphone in my handbag, put it on my shoulder and joined the two of them. We were then taken to a consulting room at the end of a hallway. It was a typical doctor's room like any other. There was a desk in front of a window with two chairs across from it. There was also an examination couch on the side wall, as well as two shelves and a scale on the wall, which was located near the consulting room door.

“Please take a seat. Dr. Klein will come at any moment and then it can start.", said the receptionist with a friendly smile on her face.

Before I could ask a question, there was a knock on the door, whereupon the doctor entered the room. She was around 50 years old, had some gray hair, a bit shorter than me and also a slim guy.

“Good afternoon the lady and the gentleman! I'm Doktor Klein.", the doctor briefly introduced herself to me and the young man by shaking hands with both of us.

“Sorry for my little delay, but there was a little emergency this morning at your future employer, which is why I had to leave the house for a short time. But first take a seat.", explained Dr. Klein briefly talked about the situation before we took a seat on the two chairs in front of her desk.

The receptionist went outside again and closed the door behind her.

“Well, you both start your jobs in the neighboring nursing home today. You, Ms. Miriam Wegner, as part of a voluntary social year and you, Mr. Paul Meyer, are starting your geriatric nursing apprenticeship today. Is that right?”, asked the doctor, to which we both answered yes.

"OK. As you have seen, things were already a bit turbulent this morning, after which we now have a little time lag. In order to make up for this delay, I would like to combine your two appointments and briefly carry out the mandatory pre-employment check-up for the care center. Would that be okay with both of you?"

The young gentleman and I looked at each other briefly with a questioning look, as if we wanted to wait and see how the other would react. We hesitated a bit for a moment, but then finally nodded and affirmed the doctor's plan.

-It can't be that bad if she wants to handle both of our appointments at once.- I thought to myself by the way.

Still, the fact that there was a young man sitting next to me made me tingle a bit…